in the community

The road to the recycling bin may be paved with good intentions, but Americans still have a long way to go in this department — especially considering how much waste we generate. Reasoning that a little incentive couldn’t hurt, former management consultant Ron Gonen founded RecycleBank: a program that rewards households for their recycling efforts.

Each participating household gets a big blue recycling bin embedded with a computer chip. Each week the cart is scanned and weighed at the curb, the weight converted to points, and the points credited directly to an individual account. The points can be redeemed for discounts and rewards at hundreds of participating businesses, including Sears, CVS pharmacies, and Home Depot. To Gonen, it’s not just the economics, it’s the quantifiable sense of accomplishment. “RecycleBank tries to ensure that everything we do is measured — and we share those numbers,” he says in a Time magazine article. Like the Climate Change exhibitions multiplier effect interactive, a counter on the home page tracks the number of trees and gallons of oil that members have saved to date. Municipalities win too, because costs drop when less waste goes to landfills. Since launching successfully in Philadelphia in 2006, RecycleBank now operates through much of the Northeast. See if your town or borough is already a RecycleBank partner, or if not, how you can help make it happen.

Summer’s the easiest time of the year to eat locally. All kinds of fruits and vegetables are starting to ripen, whether in your garden or piling up on stands at the farmer’s market. If you don’t have a patch of dirt to call your own, how about finding a community garden through the American Community Gardening Association? It’s a great way to meet your neighbors and spend less to feed your family great food. If you’d just as soon have the tomatoes and peaches show on your doorstep, consider supporting “community supported agriculture” by joining a CSA. Members who subscribe to CSA farms receive a box of fresh seasonal fruits and veggies each week. To locate a farm or market near you, enter your zip code in the Get Local Info box on The Daily Green's homepage.

Find out from Alec Loorz, a 14-year-old from Ventura, California. He’s speaking at 1 PM on Tuesday April 14th, in the Museum's first-floor Kaufman Theater.

After watching Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Alec became an impassioned environmentalist. Convinced that he and his peers could make a difference, he founded Kids vs. Global Warming. This youth-led non-profit organization educates other kids about climate change, and teaches them how to speak up and take action. In this talk, Alec will share his message and suggest ways for kids and families to get involved in protecting the environment. A question-and-answer session will follow. It's free with Museum admission.

Last October Al Gore invited Alec to be formally trained with The Climate Project; he is now their youngest U.S.-trained presenter. On the heels of his Museum presentation, Alec will be speaking at the United Nations “Global Partners for Global Solutions” conference on April 15th.

You’re not the only ones pitching in with your thoughts on how climate change is affecting you and what we should do about it. The Climate Change exhibition concludes by asking visitors to write or draw their opinions on paper cards. Check out the Featured Content sidebar on the right for a card slideshow. As you’ll see, some are ingenious and some downright inspired. These aren’t the only ideas on display at the museum either: this blog, with some of your posts, appears on a screen to the left of the cards. It’s the last thing visitors see before heading home to reflect on what they’ve learned and how they’re going to act on it.

We’d like to second Fran’s suggestion that you take a look at the three finalists for the X Prize Foundation’s Energy and Environment Challenge, and vote for your favorite video. The stakes are $10 million+ in prize money for the competition most likely to “end our addiction to oil and stem the harmful effects of climate change.”

Much as we appreciated the proud-to-be-a-nerd spirit of the “Capacitor” and “Energy Independence” contenders, we agree with Fran: we think that a competition to “Reduce Home Energy Usage” would be great. The concept is that over a two-year period communities would compete to see which could reduce its home energy consumption the most. The videomakers point out that participants wouldn’t need to be technology experts, and that teams could consist of school districts or homes within a zip code. Could you come up with other kinds of communities that might mobilize around this challenge? What do you think about the approach of using the prize to tackle energy consumption instead of alternative energy production?